When the combatants are morally unequal, it is immoral to treat them in the same way

One of the really icky things about the Left is that it lacks a moral compass. There is no good or evil. There are only evil haves and victimized have-nots.

In a sane moral universe, cultural arbiters would readily be able to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in the Middle East. The good guys are the ones that give equal rights to all religions, whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Bahai, or Atheist. The bad guys are the ones that impose horrific burdens on those who do not follow the bad guys’ faith, with those burdens ranging from increased taxes, exile from the land of their ancestors, beatings, and mass murder.

The good guys are the ones that do not torture or kill people because of their sexual orientation. The bad guys are the ones who routinely torture and hang gay men.

The good guys are the ones who acknowledge that women are fully equal to men, and are therefore entitled to both respect and civil rights. The bad guys are the ones who view women as inherently evil, lascivious, stupid, and dangerous and, to that end segregate them; dehumanize them through clothing; institutionalize pedophilia; mutilate them; deprive them of basic freedoms, liberties, and rights; and turn any of their infractions, whether criminal or social, into capital crimes.

The good guys are the ones who put into place a defense system that allows them to suffer through thousands of rocket attacks before making the decision to retaliate and who, when they retaliate, will abort solid attacks against known targets if they realize that children are in the line of fire. The bad guys are the ones who take land for peace, only to break their bargain immediately and rain rockets down upon the opposite entity in the exchange. And the bad guys are the one who view children as both targets and shields, because they care more about propaganda than lives.

In a sane world, if these two entities went to war because the good guys got tired of years of being the bad guys’ target practice, coverage would be much like the news was in the years leading up to and during WWII: the good guys would be praised and supported, while the bad guys would be excoriated. Back in those days, the media knew that the Allies had some bad individuals amongst them and that there were Axis soldiers who were forced to fight and hated what they did. The media understoid the fundmentak difference, though, between the Axis powers and the Allies — the latter was a healthy society fighting against a sick one before the sick society’s cancer could spread.

Those days of sanity are over. The media hasn’t gone quite so far as to pretend that the bad guys — the Palestinians, the Iranians, and the Islamists — are actually fighting a good fight. They do something much more insidious, because only people who pay attention are aware — as Dennis Prager explains, they pretend that the two sides are the same:

[A]n evil entity made war on a peaceful, decent entity, and the latter responded.

How has the New York Times reported this?

On Friday, on its front page, the Times featured two three-column-wide photos. The top one was of Gaza Muslim mourners alongside the dead body of al-Jabari. The photo below was of Israeli Jews mourning alongside the dead body of Mira Scharf, a 27-year-old mother of three.

What possible reason could there be for the New York Times to give identical space to these two pictures? One of the dead, after all, was a murderer, and the other was one of his victims.

The most plausible reason is that the Times wanted to depict through pictures a sort of moral equivalence: Look, sophisticated Times readers! Virtually identical scenes of death and mourning on both sides of the conflict. How tragic.

If one had no idea what had triggered this war, one would read and see the Times coverage and conclude that two sides killing each other were both equally at fault.

The Times technique works only too well. Just today, one of the women in my mother’s retirement community said that none of this would happen if the Israelis would just give Gaza back to the Palestinians. She was surprised when my mother told her that Israel had already done this years ago, only to be rewarded with a barrage of rockets. The MSM, which this lady watches assiduously, failed to make that point clear.

Prager’s conclusion, after giving more examples of the Times inability to understand moral absolutes, is the same as that with which I started this post:

As the flagship news source of the Left, the New York Times reveals the great moral failing inherent to leftism — its combination of moral relativism and the division of the world between strong and weak, Western and non-Western, and rich and poor rather than between good and evil.

Share this:

This morning on the news: “Israel has fired over one thousand airstrikes into Gaza” and “Hamas had fired several rockets at Israel.” Several? SEVERAL?!?! How in tarnations does ONE THOUSAND translate into “SEVERAL,” hmmm?

lee

And speaking of “moral relativism…”

It only goes one way–away from the West. If a non-Western cultural TODAY believes that women cannot vote, inherit property, are considered the property of their father or their husband, well, that is their culture, and we can’t condemn their culture, but if Western Europe did this FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, well, they were evil, benighted horrible culture. If a non-Western culture TODAY believes that it IS okay to wage war just because they feel a neighboring tribe is inferior, well, that is just their “culture,” and who are we to condemn them? But if the West, Europe or the United States did this TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO, well, they are evil colonialist powers subjecting the innocent. If a non-Western culture believes a little slavery helps their non-Western society, well, who are we to judge their society; all (non-Western) societies have value, and their practices are not ours to condemn. But if the US did this TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO, we are evil and can never be forgiven.

I am just mystified.

Not like I think these practices are good, or not to be condemned, but I am tired of feeling like I have to wear a hair shirt for eternity for something that was last done generations before my birth, while the CURRENT generation of the Moslem world get a pass–because it’s cultural sensitive to give them a pass.

Urgh.

USMaleSF

Well, of course, it’s only actually morally relativist when it comes to traditional Western morals. But with its own enlightened revelations about racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. there is nothing relative about it. Absolute good vs absolute evil. Its relativism is only a strategy.

SADIE

I am speechless. Not really speechless once I get passed screaming WTF!

Terrorists celebrate ceasefire with 20 attacks against Israel – Israel can
send note to Egypt
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date:21 November 2012
Israel Radio reported in the 11 PM news bulleting that since the start of
the ceasefire at 9 PM the terrorist have launched 20 attacks against Israel.
It should be noted that under the terms of the agreement, the only thing
that Israel can do in response to attacks is to file a complaint with Egypt.
To repeat: if Israel is attacked it would still be a violation of the
agreement for Israel to respond. By the same token, if Israel saw
terrorists in the middle of launching attacks against Israel it would be a
violation for Israel to try to stop the terrorists from attacking.
Here is the relevant passage from the agreement: “c. Each party shall
commit itself not to perform any acts that would breach this understanding.
In case of any observations Egypt as the sponsor of this understanding shall
be informed to follow up. “

When combatants are unequal morally, to treat them as equal is to commit the great fallacy of moral equivalence.

Mike Devx

So, after the ceasefire agreement, twenty missiles have (already) been fired from Gaza into Israel?

In a sane world, when there has been a ceasefire agreement, and then one side begins firing missiles (again), that is known as… a violation of the ceasefire agreement! And the cease fire is OVER. Yet somehow Israel is still held to the agreement? In what sane world would that be possible?

I was watching the news at the airport. Not a word about this. If Israel had launched twenty missiles into Gaza after the ceasefire agreement, the entire (Israel-hating) world would have convulsed and howled with a frenzy of condemnation. There are days I can barely stand it.